The Baytown Police Department in Texas has charged a woman with the murder of her boyfriend. Police say 30-year-old Cierra Alexis Sutton fatally shot her boyfriend, 32-year-old Steven Coleman as he slept and then dismembered his body inside their home. The gruesome crime took place on Aug. 16 at an apartment complex in the Houston suburb of Baytown. Friends reportedly say Sutton confessed and told them her ten-year-old daughter was in the living room at the time.
Detectives say Sutton and the victim had gotten into an argument the evening of the killing. Later, while the victim was sleeping, Sutton allegedly fatally shot him in the head. She then allegedly dismembered the remains with a machete, wrapped them in sheets and duct tape, loaded them into her Jeep and disposed of them at different dumpsters. On August 18, Sutton herself then filed a missing person report. She showed up at a police station and said she’d last seen Coleman two days earlier, that is the day of the killing, and that he’d left home around 10:30 p.m. She pretended not to know anything and was even trying to call him, a neighbour said.
Coleman’s car was still parked at the complex, and family and friends told police they hadn’t heard from him. Witnesses said they had seen him moving furniture out of the couple’s apartment before his disappearance and one friend told investigators Coleman had once said if he ever disappeared, police should investigate his girlfriend. According to the Chronicle, police searched the couple’s apartment about a week after the disappearance and found it “mostly vacant” with blood traces scattered across the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. Then on August 22, a male torso believed to be Coleman’s was discovered at a Baytown landfill. DNA has not positively identified the remains, but police say it matches the description of Coleman. Sutton reportedly said she would talk to Baytown police about the disappearance before Hurricane Harvey struck the area, but she never showed up. With the help of an anonymous tip, police tracked her to a New Orleans suburb, where she had allegedly fled with her daughter. She was arrested there Thursday and charged with murder.
